James Chichester-Clark

James Dawson Chichester-Clark, Baron Moyola, PC, DL (12 February 1923 – 17 May 2002) was the penultimate Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and eighth leader of the Ulster Unionist Party between 1969 and March 1971. He was Member of the Northern Ireland Parliament for South Londonderry for 12 years, beginning at the by-election to replace his grandmother, Dame Dehra Parker in 1960. He stopped being an MP when the Stormont Parliament was suspended and subsequently abolished with the introduction of Direct Rule by the British Government. Chichester-Clark's election as UUP leader resulted from the sudden resignation of Terence O'Neill after the ambiguous result of the preceding general election. His term in office was dominated by both internal unionist struggles, seeing the political emergence of Ian Paisley from the right and Alliance Party of Northern Ireland from the left, and an emergent Irish nationalist resurgence. In March 1971, with his health suffering under the strain of the growing political strife, he resigned, having failed to secure extra military resources from the British Government. Family background and early life Chichester-Clark was born as James Dawson Clark at Moyola Park, Castledawson, County Londonderry, his family's ancestral home. He was the eldest of three children of James J. Lenox-Conyngham Clark and Marion Caroline Dehra, née Chichester. His brother was Robin Chichester-Clark and his sister, Penelope Hobhouse, the garden writer and historian. In 1924 James Clark, Snr. changed the family name to Chichester-Clark by deed poll, thus preventing the old Protestant Ascendancy name Chichester (his wife's maiden name) from dying out. On his mother's side the family are descended from the Donegall Chichesters and were the heirs of the Dawsons of Castledawson, who had originally held Moyola Park.